Monster
by Nelarun
Summary: Because at heart he was a monster who would do anything to protect the one he loved.


**Monster  
><strong>A Torchwood Fanfic  
>By Nelarun<br>Torchwood (c) BBC

* * *

><p>He should have known. He shouldn't have ever come here but he needed to know <em>why<em>. He just had to know. How the hell had this happened?

He had been greeted by a friendly smile, a handshake and then ushered into the Hub (completely against regulations, he'd been informed with a wink) and introduced to the pterodactyl ("Dark Chocolate, who knew!") who did a few laps before she returned to her nest and watched them. The guided tour ended when his tour guide had to quickly disappear to take a call and he wandered and found something which made him feel like his world was ending. Illness creeping up and then he ran.

… right into his friend. _What have you done_?

"Everything alright?"

"Wha- yeah. Nothing's wrong I have to... I got a call, should get back to the hotel, my kids are waiting for me to tell them goodnight, the missus was just telling me off for missing our webcam date."

"Ah, that's not good. Shall we?" He swallowed tightly as he was guided to the invisible lift. He thought he preferred the more conventional method of getting out. God, was that a sidearm? He was armed. God, fuck, bollocks, shit! He was dead. Was he going to be pushed off the lift? Was that how he was going to end, because that would be fatal from this height. The pterodactyl was eyeing them and he gave a faint laugh as the other man waved a cheerful goodbye and told her to behave.

**oOo**

He told himself that he wasn't afraid of the man who was walking slightly behind him.

He told himself that until he heard the click of the safety being removed.

Then he was running, fleeing from a man he had once called friend.

**oOo**

It was no surprise to any of the soldiers who survived the Wharf that Ianto numbered among their ranks. Even less surprising to Patrick when he heard that Ianto had managed to escape the twisting, burning, groaning metal building with a half converted Lisa. He had used the last of his clearance to wipe those camera's for Ianto. Lisa was going to die anyway – no way had she survived that conversion, least he could do was give Ianto the chance to say goodbye before the UNIT goons got in and destroyed her. But he hadn't said goodbye, he had fucking saved her! How the bloody hell had he done that? He was research, yes, but more on the archival front not actual scientific research! How had he pieced together enough scrap metal to build that bloody thing! How had he secreted them away for so long?

Fuck! He rounded a corner and slammed into a wall before he regained his bearings and continued running as hard and fast as he could. How the hell had he even managed to get here – crowded places were the best but he had been shepherded to this isolated district. He paused to take gulping lungfuls of air and ducked as the brick above his head splintered into dust at the impact of a bullet.

Patrick had handed Ianto a weapon and magazines. He knew _exactly_ what Ianto Jones could do with a weapon in hand. He had hoped, _hoped_, that Ianto would use the weapons to defend the others trapped on the floor with him, but he hadn't – he had killed them all and fled with his tail between his legs, stopping only for his fucked up, converted girlfriend.

The pet dinosaur didn't surprise him (and really, Patrick thought that he ought to alert ARC about that, after all he _was_ one of theirs now), that Ianto had developed his skills to include tracking in urban settings had. Ianto hated the camping aspects of basic and while he had pitched in and done his best on most activities, he also hadn't put in too much effort in the tracking portions. He hit the wall in frustration. Why had he thought that he could confront Ianto on home turf? Ianto appeared in the mouth of the alley way and approached him, slowly, sedately, almost as though he didn't have a care in the world. It was almost a scene out of a Henry Bogart black and white: a man walking down an alley way, three piece suit, fiddling with a gun – though Ianto appeared to be taking a silencer off the gun... "You don't need to do this."

Ianto shrugged slightly. "I do, actually."

"Ianto-"

"If only you hadn't come to investigate."

"Ianto. Please, just... please!"

"Sorry Pat. You were one of the decent ones."

"Then you owe me!"

"I do. I am sorry."

"Ianto!"

The gunshots rang out. Ianto stared down at the body and walked away. He needed to check on Lisa, and the Chinese should be ready for pick up.

**oOo**

He walked up the stairs in time to hear Suzie eagerly exclaim that there had been a murder in the industrial complex. "Got your stopwatch?" she flashed him a grin and he nodded, quickly joining the others in the SUV.

There was the usual grumbling from the Police as Torchwood arrived, but they were rapidly let in to observe the body.

"Poor bastard, was running scared." Owen told them softly. "Hunted like prey."

"Sir?" Jack glanced at Ianto who looked a little pale. "I know him."

"You do? Old school mate?"

"Torchwood One." Ianto was about to elaborate when Suzie pulled the glove out of the box, the others shifting slightly to shield her from the Police officers inquisitive eyes. Suzie nodded her thanks and then glove worked, the man jerked up and Tosh leaned over him.

"Hello, hello."

"I didn't mean to."

"What's your name."

"Oh gods, I didn't mean to."

"Your name!"

"I shouldn't have looked! I shouldn't have looked! Should have left well enough alone. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to put a weapon in his hands, to put him _there_..." He looked at Tosh. "I'm dead? Torchwood? Oh gods, I'm dead aren't I! He shot me! That bastard actually shot me!"

"Yes, yes you are and yes, we are. Please we don't have much time. Who killed you?"

"Is Ianto here? Is he?"

Ianto looked at Jack who nodded and he hurried forward, kneeling down and taking his hand.

"Pat?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me."

"You've done nothing wrong."

"I trained you."

"You protected me."

"I put you in the worst sort of danger. You were pinned. How did you survive when everyone else died? Why is your name on the list of survivors when Tammy is dead! Why didn't you protect her?"

"Pat-"

"I trusted you! I bloody well trusted you! Why didn't you protect her? Why didn't-"

**oOo**

Jack found Ianto dismantling the coffee machine with a cold, clinical detachment. "His name was Patrick Donohue. He was a soldier from Torchwood One, in charge of giving us basic training. Good man. He... Pat was a decent guy. His wife, Tammy, we were thrown together, placed somewhere it was supposed to be safe. I thought... if it were just the cybermen we would have been alright but the darleks came behind us, then we weren't able to keep the cybermen out and..."

"But you survived. How?"

"On occasion, I'm good with a gun." He gave a brittle laugh. "To be honest I don't even know how I got out of there. Over the radios all we could hear was screaming and crying. darlek voices and cybermen and bursts of bullets and that laser..." He picked up a cloth and began cleaning the parts. "The three soldiers who had been stationed with us committed suicide as soon as they saw the darleks. And then..." He stopped moving for a moment staring at the wall. "They say that when the adrenalin kicks in that you have a sort of clarity, the ability to remember everything. But I remember... I remember hearing the cybermen at the door, then the wall behind us exploded and we couldn't hear anything, everything was muted and I know _why _but it was terrifying. We were just researchers. Civilians." His hands were shaking. "I can't remember how I got out. But I remember Tammy... sound had come back by then and I was shooting because if I stopped I would die... and they had... A cyberman was dragging her. She'd just told us she was pregnant that morning and then the bloody Doctor ordered us to take up arms. He was supposed to be our enemy and yet we were taking orders from him. And they were dragging her. I killed her. I killed Tammy, Pat's wife. I shot her because no one deserves that. Last I heard he was working for ARC. Most of the soldiers were recruited by them. Those that didn't off themselves anyway."

"You didn't."

"Yeah, well neither did I stay in London." Ianto said. "Fled as soon as I could." He breathed a laugh. "Didn't even pack up my flat. Just left."

"You survived, you moved on."

"No, sir. Moving on wouldn't be working so hard to get in here."

"Yes, why did you?"

"Because London hated you, and _loved_ you. Because if there was any chance of recovering it would be under your command. Your MO is so different to London's that it would be like working for a different organisation. Unit it too paramilitary for me, and how would I be able to work in a civilian job after doing all of this?"

Jack straightened. "Ianto, if you need some time-"

"No, sir. Thank you but no. I'll just... fix this, make coffee and keep working on the archives if that's allowed."

"Okay." Jack silently walked away, keeping an eye on Ianto as he cleaned and fixed and then produced that divine elixir known as 'Ianto's coffee'.

"Sir?" Ianto was lingering, fiddling with the tray.

"Yes?"

"Is it bad that I'm glad he's dead? Bad that I don't feel guilt."

"Why should you feel guilt. It's not like you killed him."

Ianto lifted a shoulder in the smallest shrug. "Sure. And I suppose he would have taken our girl from us."

"Exactly." Jack set his coffee down and rested a hand on Ianto's shoulder. "You can stay with me tonight if you'd like."

"Yes, sir... Thank you, sir."

As Ianto left, Jack felt a shiver of foreboding run through him, his gaze not leaving Ianto until he was disappeared into the archives.

**oOo**

Ianto pressed a kiss to Lisa's cheek and smiled at her as she opened her eyes. "Oh, my Lisa," he said softly. "We're both monsters aren't we."

"No."

"Pat found us. He found out about you – challenged me, threatened us so I hunted him down and I killed him."

"That doesn't make you a monster, my love. You're protecting us – me." She broke off with a whimper and Ianto turned around, finding the morphine.

"Here you are." he murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek , wiping the tears away from her. "You'll never guess what happened today."

"Tell me everything."

She offered a watery laugh as he told her about the antics Torchwood Three had come up with over the course of the past few days while she had been lost to the pain.

No matter what anyone said, he was a monster. He was happy that he had killed Pat with the gun – those bullets spinning and tearing through his flesh, that meaty impact, the staggering, the crashing to his knees, the whimpering, the way the breath left him and all because of what he had done with a weapon. It was intoxicating.

He was a monster, and Ianto Jones was perfectly happy with that.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So I read somewhere that initially Ianto was supposed to be a darker character than how he ended up being portrayed (and may I state for the record that I have no issue with this: Brit-snark ^-^). Anyway, my brain went a little crazy and tada! Also, I re-watched seasons 1-3 of Torchwood the other day and 1-6 of Doctor Who as well as Firefly/Serenity AND 1-5 of Andromeda; amazing what happens when you're in between jobs and have no life outside of work and uni (GRADUATED! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) Any who, I'm supposed to be working on an inspirational 'why you should go to this uni' speech for a bunch of high schoolers and the first line is 'I know I'm supposed to be standing here to say this university is the best, but it's not.'

Somehow I don't think that's what they were after... Soooo back to the speech writing I go. There is the potential for there to be a second chapter to this, but what I'm currently working on could just as easily stand alone. Meh, we'll see. Slight cross-over with Primeval, I couldn't help myself.


End file.
